Posted Thu Oct 22, 2015 at 06:29 AM PDT by Justin Clark
(But Were Afraid to Ask)
'Rock Band 4' is now in everyone's greedy little hands and is generally accepted to be good stuff, and the vast majority of the old DLC tracks making the jump over better than ever helps. Now, the question hanging in the air for veterans is if/when we can pull the previous on-disc music into the current gen. Today, Harmonix has a few answers.
The simple answer is that yes, Harmonix has eyes on bringing pretty much all the music from previous 'Rock Band' titles that they can into the game. Yes, there's still a few known MIAs out there, The biggest one, as you might expect, being that the beautiful and brilliant 'Beatles: Rock Band' remains lamentably stranded on previous gen. 'Green Day: Rock Band' also appears to be a weird case, as all the tracks are available in the RB Store right this second, and can be installed already if you purchased them as DLC, but if you owned the game on a disc, you still have to wait until the export option opens up for it to get them without paying again. There's also, of course, the matter of the 15 tracks that couldn't be exported to begin with from previous games, due to licensing issues, but who knows where they stand yet. Considering there's all the other Soundgarden currently available in the store, I dont see any reason why Spoonman and Black Hole Sun wouldn't pop up in future, but weirder things have happened.
Otherwise, however, Harmonix is already hard at work trying to bring the past tracks onboard. Currently, the only one we have hard and fast details on is 'Rock Band 3', which is set to be available for export starting on December 8th following a major feature update. All the tracks will come updated with freestyle vocal/guitar options. No word on their plans concerning the keytar, but the tracks will get by fine without. It'll cost you $14.99 to bring it all in when its ready.
Course, that's if you already own the game. If you need to buy the game new, heads up that Harmonix's ability to even sell the game at retail and the Xbox Live Marketplace actually expires next week. Might want to jump on that. And for safety's sake, you may actually want to buy new if possible, because the blog post includes a shady little tidbit that only "verified purchasers of 'Rock Band 3'" will be able to export.
"We will be automatically verifying your purchase electronically, which means that you'll need to have bought a new copy and played 'Rock Band 3' for our export process to work."
Here's the other catch: There's also a bit in the FAQ that they appear to be using 'Rock Band 3' as the gateway to get the other games into 'Rock Band 4' as well. The older titles have to have been imported into that game in order to be validated for use, and it's got to be with the same online account you sed to buy it in the first place. We're likely to get some clarification in the coming weeks how all this will work, but as a CYA policy, and also because Power of Love is seriously fun as hell in that game, might want to snatch up 'Rock Band 3' sooner than later.
Head over to Harmonix's blog to read the rest of the info, which also includes a fast blurb that the Rock Band Network might make a comeback in the future.
Source: Harmonix
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